George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Unforgettable

Bopping in here with a review of Unforgettable - not the Nat King Cole song, the new CBS series - which I've been watching this Fall, so far, 11 episodes, but haven't had a chance to review.

It's a good set-up - Carrie an NYPD detective has a better than photographic memory - she can recall not only everything she sees, but can pull into focus even tiny details on the periphery of her vision, that she almost didn't see, or wasn't aware of seeing, the first time. Meanwhile, the one thing she doesn't remember enough of is who killed her sister, long ago, when she was a little girl. Poppy Montgomery gives an appealingly sassy, sensitive performance.

Dylan Walsh - first seen years ago in Brooklyn South, another cop show - plays Det. Al Burns, Carrie's boss and de facto partner. The two were also romantic partners years ago. Carrie still thinks of him in that way, and Al feels the same way, deep down. The rest of the squad is also a bit more memorable and wise-cracking and well written than the usual the NYPD precinct fare.

Unforgettable also a colorful, real NYC ambiance, with real universities figuring in the story - NYU, CUNY, and hey, one episode even featured Fordham! (Not my Communication and Media Studies Department, but the Sociology Department, pretty close.) The series tries a little too hard, though, for social media currency, with one character talking about receipt of a "pdf," when clearly all that was needed was "text".

But the individual stories are diverting enough - almost as good as Law & Order: SVU's - and the central story, Carrie's hunt for the killer of her sister, receives enough attention in every episode to keep me watching. I'll have more on Unforgettable in the New Year.

About Me

Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication &
Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997),
Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the
subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science
Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).His short stories
have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.Paul Levinson appears on "The
O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"“NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),“Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous
national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of
television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of
Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

e-mail received from a reader:Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchidren. Thanks! Tom